Fran­chis­ing

Expanding your business?

Overview

If you’re con­sid­er­ing fran­chis­ing your busi­ness, you need advice from an expe­ri­enced fran­chis­ing lawyer who under­stands the unique char­ac­ter­is­tics of fran­chise busi­ness­es and the chal­lenges that fran­chisors face.

We know fran­chise doc­u­ments which form the basis of your sys­tem need to be capa­ble of pro­vid­ing the lev­el of pro­tec­tion you need as a fran­chisor. They also need to be fair to all par­ties and guar­an­tee fran­chisees an appro­pri­ate lev­el of train­ing, men­tor­ing and support.

A key aspect of our work with you as a fran­chisor is pro­tect­ing your intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty. This includes safe­guard­ing con­fi­den­tial infor­ma­tion, secur­ing domain names and deter­min­ing what trade marks are to be used. The class­es in which trade marks are to be reg­is­tered also need to take into account the pos­si­bil­i­ties for diver­si­fi­ca­tion of the busi­ness in the future.

We can review your fran­chise agree­ments and sup­port­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion for a fixed fee agreed in advance. We have the expe­ri­ence to focus on those aspects which may be open to nego­ti­a­tion. We are also able to sign cer­tifi­cates of inde­pen­dent advice as rec­om­mend­ed under the Fran­chis­ing Code of Conduct.

We have valu­able con­tacts with­in the indus­try who can advise you on finan­cial mod­el­ling and on the dif­fer­ent ways you can struc­ture your fran­chise sys­tem. For fran­chisors, it is an effec­tive way to expand an exist­ing suc­cess­ful busi­ness and raise funds for future growth. For fran­chisees, it pro­vides an excel­lent struc­ture for run­ning a busi­ness in a tried and test­ed way. Ser­vices include:

Advis­ing on oblig­a­tions under the fran­chise agree­ment and col­lat­er­al documents

Lease of premises

Loan doc­u­ments

Legal assis­tance with sell­ing a busi­ness and assign­ing the franchise

Fran­chis­ing litigation

Employ­ment contracts

Con­trac­tor arrangements

Signed cer­tifi­cates of inde­pen­dent advice for franchisees

Detailed noti­fi­ca­tions to the ACCC in rela­tion to full line and third line forc­ing conduct

Dis­trib­u­tor to fran­chisees experience

We were instru­men­tal in rolling out one of the first nation­al fran­chis­ing sys­tems for beau­ty salons in Aus­tralia. The chal­lenge was to cre­ate a fran­chise net­work con­sist­ing of a large num­ber of busi­ness­es which ranged wide­ly in their size, oper­a­tional style and lev­el of profitability.

These busi­ness­es had the choice of remain­ing as dis­trib­u­tors, becom­ing fran­chisees or leav­ing the net­work. From the franchisor’s point of view, it was desir­able to retain as many of the exist­ing dis­trib­u­tors with­in the nation­al fran­chise net­work as pos­si­ble. Run­ning con­trary to this was the instinc­tive reluc­tance of indi­vid­ual busi­ness own­ers to for­sake their auton­o­my and com­ply with full-line and third-line forc­ing requirements.

Our work involved cre­at­ing a robust tem­plate for the fran­chise, defus­ing a range of poten­tial dis­putes and mak­ing a num­ber of rep­re­sen­ta­tions to the ACCC to seek approval for the pro­posed sys­tem. Through care­ful and mea­sured nego­ti­a­tion, the fran­chisor was able to per­suade the major­i­ty of busi­ness own­ers to trust in the lead­er­ship of the com­pa­ny, remain loy­al to the brand and join the new fran­chise network.